Chapter 90 : In the Dream Where the Flower of the Other Shore Blooms

Alisa, who had been sleeping with her black hair covering her face inside a teapot, suddenly opened her eyes at a loud noise. She opened the lid and looked around to check if something strange had happened, but everything around her was as usual.

Silence.

“…”

Alisa looked at the sky. Above the yellow sky, a giant egg laid by a chicken had cracked, and the sun flowed out, ripening towards evening. On the trees, clocks were fluttering in the refreshing swamp breeze.

Tick tock

The clocks that couldn’t make a sound because they were wet from the damp swamp.

Someone had dried them well, and they were now making sounds.

“…”

It seemed someone had already done the errand of hanging up the clocks that Alisa couldn’t do.

“…”

Alisa couldn’t do the White Rabbit’s errand because she was sleeping, but she guessed that the Brown Cat or the Mad Hatter must have taken care of it.

‘Maybe the pigeon did it.’

Alisa looked at the messy tea party table in front of her, then went back into the teapot to sleep again. She needed to sleep deeply because once the tea party started, she wouldn’t be able to sleep again.

In the quiet darkness.

Alisa sank her consciousness into the space of nothingness that was all too familiar to her.

Just quietly staying still.

That was what she thought life looked like.

* * *

March 5th

“The magical girl of [Dream]?”

“Yes… Asya stayed behind at a hospital she visited recently, saying she would cure a long-term patient. It seems she’s been going to that hospital every day, trying to approach the dream world.”

Natalia, who had quickly become close to Cho Yeonseo due to their compatible personalities, reported to me with a worried face.

Natalia, Chen Lihua, Cho Yeonseo.

The three who shared most of the narrative in <Magical Girl HAZARD>, enough to be called the protagonist party. They quickly became close after encountering each other a few times while going back and forth to Elysion, even in this changed history.

‘They all had their own sense of justice enough to unite even in an apocalyptic situation. Maybe their personalities match even better when they meet in normal times.’

As the work progressed past the middle, they all died one by one starting with Chen Lihua.

“…”

Yuki still avoided meeting them. Even though it was already a changed world, their faces were too familiar, making it harder for her to see them.

‘If she just sincerely faced those girls, it might be resolved unexpectedly quickly.’

I was in no position to ask them to be friendly with Yuki, so I just watched.

-I passed the entrance exam! I’m so nervous about entering high school! What should I do, Hikari?

I had asked Yuki to go her own way, hoping to give her even a little bit of daily life after being dragged into the extraordinary due to destruction. Yuki said her relationship with her father was gradually improving.

‘I just need to keep going my own way too.’

Natalia, who came to Elysion as the transport manager.

Chen Lihua, dedicating herself to training as the leader of the Free Magical Girl Federation.

Cho Yeonseo, active in the Russian domain included by the Divine Maiden.

And even Hong Nayeon, who unexpectedly enlisted as a new recruit in the White Wing Unit…

I shuddered when I confirmed the names of the righteous characters from the original work who naturally joined the magical girl society in the process of saving people and establishing Elysion.

‘Is this the great path that encompasses everything, as Father said?’

So I was closely watching their movements, and it seemed Cho Yeonseo had some concerns.

“Could you tell me the address of that hospital?”

“Oh, are you going to visit in person, Your Majesty?”

“Yes. I can return to Elysion or the Garden anytime. I’ll leave a clone behind too.”

“I’ll tell you right away. No! I’ll write it down for you!”

I checked the address Natalia hastily wrote down on paper she pulled from her bosom and went to Moscow through the warp gate located in Elysion. Perhaps because I had moved Elysion close to the US West Coast for magical girls’ transportation issues, Moscow’s biting wind felt even more noticeable.

‘I’m glad I wore the thick outer coat I brought just in case.’

As I came out of the Grand Council office located in Moscow, I saw people glancing at me, recognizing my face.

“Huh? Isn’t that the magical girl of [Beginning]?”

“What? Hmm… I can’t see well because I drank too much vodka… Which woman are you talking about, the one standing on the right or left?”

“Get a grip! There’s only one woman there. Why are you so drunk? You only drank three bottles.”

I slightly covered my face by raising the collar of my coat and walked briskly to the hospital Cho Yeonseo was said to be visiting.

And after walking for tens of minutes.

The state of the hospital I arrived at and checked was terrible.

Rusty and twisted metal structures everywhere.

Cement visible through completely peeled paint.

An old man drinking vodka while sitting outside in hospital clothes.

“…”

In the miserable state of the hospital that was depressing just to look at, people who were clearly not normal were wandering around in shabby hospital gowns.

“What am I supposed to do now… I can’t remember.”

“It’s all over…”

Although there were no people with noticeable external injuries thanks to the healing volunteer work of magical girls, most looked like people abandoned under the pretext of illness.

People who had mental illnesses too, banging their heads against walls.

People trying to stay in the hospital by self-harming with miserable feelings after being abandoned by their families.

Dementia patients that no one wants to care for.

Emptiness.

This old hospital was full of only emptiness.

Even the doctors and nurses were ignoring patients holding bottles of alcohol while wearing shabby hospital gowns. They too were just pretending to work on the surface, but they equally considered this place the final destination of their lives.

I passed by them and entered the room on the top floor. No one stopped me even though I was heading to the room without saying anything.

Knock knock

When I knocked on the door, Cho Yeonseo with her striking purple eyes and hair came out from inside the room. She looked at me with wide, surprised eyes.

“Huh?! The magical girl of [Beginning]?”

“Hello, Asya.”

“You’re calling me by that nickname. Did Lihua or Natasha tell you?… Oh, what brings you here?”

“Natalia-san said it seemed like Asya had some concerns.”

I could see a black-haired girl sleeping beyond Cho Yeonseo. So I carefully closed the door, but an unpleasant noise came from the heavily rusted hinges.

I was startled for a moment and looked back at the sleeping black-haired girl.

“Ugh…?!”

“She doesn’t wake up from that level of noise.”

As I looked around the room listening to Cho Yeonseo’s bitter smile, the inside of the shabby hospital room was in a terrible state, just like the outside of the hospital.

Walls covered in mold.

Curtains that had turned yellow, fluttering in the wind.

Cheap beds that were rusty and damp all over.

“Even when I close the windows, the cold wind comes in just the same.”

“…Alisa has been sleeping alone in a place like this her entire life.”

“Her entire life…?”

Cho Yeonseo explained the whole story to me in a gentle voice.

“I see. A dream so vast that even the power of the magical girl of [Dream] can’t grasp it.”

“Usually, no matter how wide the unconscious space is, it immediately leads to the conscious space. But this child only had an endless unconscious space spread out.”

“…”

What kind of dream would a person who hasn’t learned anything or felt any emotions since birth have?

“I… maybe because I’ve spent time sleeping due to narcolepsy, this child’s life doesn’t feel like someone else’s story.”

Yeonseo said as she stroked the sleeping Alisa’s face. I heard Alisa had turned 17 this year, but she looked like a middle school student or upper elementary school student on the outside.

“If Alisa wants to reclaim the life she lost to sleep in her dream, I want to help her.”

She said that’s why she had put lots of [Dream] magical girl magic on her grandfather’s house in Yekaterinburg and stayed in Moscow for several days.

“…”

For me, it might be more beneficial to ignore this matter and return to maintain Elysion or spend the remaining time making memories with friends including Yuki.

But…

-Because magical girls are here to protect everyone!

I can’t run away pretending not to know after saying such things.

There was also a calculation that I could solve Cho Yeonseo’s concerns and make her a new precious connection for the hesitating Yuki.

“I’ll enter the dream world together with you.”

“What?! Really?”

“If Asya’s dream and my fantasy combine, we might be able to show something wonderful enough to draw out Alisa’s faint consciousness.”

Cho Yeonseo grabbed my hands with tears in her eyes and bowed her head.

“Thank you… really. Actually, I felt uneasy thinking I was just being stubborn alone.”

“At times like that, you can just raise your head proudly and say it’s a magical girl’s conviction.”

Pfft

Cho Yeonseo showed a small smile for the first time at my brazen words. Then she poured purple starlight onto me as I settled in. The powerful starlight within me automatically reflected them, but I deliberately tried to accept them.

Eyes slowly closed.

A comfortable feeling.

Darkness.

Cho Yeonseo and I entered the dream of the girl named Alisa.

And what we saw there was…

“…”

“…”

“Why is there a river in the dream? Is it like this for everyone?”

“This is my first time seeing this too… Usually, even in the unconscious, familiar spaces appear first. Even if natural scenery appears, people are ultimately in places where people live.”

Cold, damp, and heavy air.

There was an endlessly flowing river under a darkening sky.

Cho Yeonseo pointed across the faintly glowing river and said.

“I can feel a very faint consciousness over there.”

“Let’s try crossing over.”

Cho Yeonseo was flustered at those words.

“I couldn’t cross over with magical girl powers here.”

“What?”

“If I try to cross through the air, I return to the starting point.”

“Then how…”

“Instead, there is one way…”

Cho Yeonseo looked somewhere, and I looked there too.

There was a skeleton drinking alcohol in a Russian squat position in front of a shabby raft.

“…”